Can built form influence social problems?

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CAN BUILT FORM INFLUENCE SOCIAL PROBLEMS?

The concept of social problems is linked to a wide spectrum of contrasting definitions. Jerome G Monis defines it as “these social conditions identified by scientific enquiry and values as detrimental to human well-being”. On the other hand Malcom Spector and Jon I Kitsuse defined them as “the activities of individuals or groups making assertion of grievance and claims with respect to some putative conditions”. (http://syg2010-01.fa04.fsu.edu/Week_1.htm)

Taking into consideration the different approaches to this debate the point that the main reason for people’s behaviour is physical form can be argued. Urban form can be seen as one of the reason for social behaviour but to deny the influence of social, economical and political factors is to simplify the complexity of society and the different relationships within it. In any case both arguments will always be episodes in the long saga of traditional controversy.

Social problems have been divided into 3 groups by Kenneth C Land (): Deviant behaviour, including drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, crime and violence. Social inequality and conflict including aging, the ederly, racial and ethnics relations, the sexes and gender inequality, poverty and economic inequality and homelessness. Finally, human groups and social change which include the changes in the economy and workplace. The social problems that can be correlated directly to urban form are seen as the one under the social inequality category and antisocial behaviour.

The line of thought that establishes that the built form influences directly to social problems has been named architectural determinism and assume that the layout and form of physical environment would shape, even determine the quality of social life.

During the period following the Second World War the architects of the Bauhaus and architects such as Le Corbusier thought that they were in a position to alter society for the better through the medium of physical design. By design we understand the design of a whole town as well as the design of relatively small scale units.

Maurice Broady described this as “the architects who builds a house or design a site plan who decides where the roads will and will not go and who decides which directions the houses will face and how close together they will be, also is, to a large extent, deciding the pattern of social life among the people who will live in these houses. It asserts that architectural design has a direct and determinate effect on the way people behave” ( Maurice Broady 1968 cited in Taylor, N, 1998).

The case of the Business Academy located on Bexley and designed by Norman Foster can be an example of how a radical project has changed students behaviour towards education. Very different to the 1960’s building where students use to attend lessons, the Academy is an open-plan where lessons are carried out in alcoves and where no division of spaces have been created. The Business Academy has been seen as a success where “the proportion of children at school achieving five good grades at GCSE has leapt from just 6% to 36%” ().

The results of this achievement could change the life style of the generation of students attending lessons in the building. The improvement of the education can bring a change for better work opportunities for the students and at the same time will have an impact on the perception of one of London’s most deprived areas.

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A building can also change the perception of the character of a city. Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum transformed Bilbao from an industrial Spanish Basque region to an international tourist destination.

But is this, just the building form, which has made the difference? To resume the success of some enterprises or the failure of others in physical terms is to simplify the complexity of society. We can attribute the achievement of the Norman Fosters’ project to the conjunction of a different kind of built environment, when compared with more traditional educative centres, and the introduction of new and ...

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